Kyrgyzstan

Country in central Asia, bounded north by Kazakhstan, east by China, west by Uzbekistan, and south by Tajikistan.

Government

Under the 1993 constitution, as amended in 2003, there is a 75 member single-chamber legislature, to which deputies are elected for five-year terms by a majority system, which provides for a second, and exceptionally a third, ballot run-off race in contests in which there is no clear first-round majority. The state president, who has supreme executive power, is directly elected and may serve a maximum of two consecutive five-year terms. The president works with a cabinet, headed by a prime minister who acts as parliamentary manager for the president.

History

Kyrgyzstan is peopled mainly by horse-breeding, mountain-dwelling nomads, the Turkic-speaking descendants of the Mongol invaders who swept across Asia from the 13th century. It was annexed by Russia in 1876, and there followed a succession of revolts against Russian rule, and the migration of many Kyrgyz to Afghanistan and China. Part of an independent Turkestan republic 1917–24, it then became an autonomous republic within the Soviet Union (USSR) and, from 1936, a constituent Soviet republic.

End of communism

Long viewed as a bastion of conservatism, the republic overwhelmingly endorsed maintenance of the Union in the March 1991 USSR referendum and its Communist Party (CP) supported the August 1991 conservative communist coup attempt against the USSR's reform communist President Gorbachev. However, Askar Akayev, a ‘reform communist’ who had assumed the republic's presidency in November 1990, condemned the coup as unconstitutional. He resigned from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and ordered the suspension of the republic's CP and the nationalization of its property. In August 1991 the republic's parliament voted to declare independence from the USSR and in September 1991 the Kyrgyz language replaced Russian as the official language. Akayev was elected, unchallenged, as Kyrgyzstan's president in October 1991 in the republic's first popular election. In December 1992 the supreme soviet (parliament) was renamed the Uluk Kenesh.

Independence recognized

Kyrgyzstan joined the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), formed in December 1991, and the USA accorded Kyrgyzstan diplomatic recognition. During 1991, with nationalism increasing in the new state, more than 100,000 ethnic Russians left the country. The economy, previously heavily reliant on Moscow subsidies, underwent substantial restructuring and price liberalization. Commercial ties were developed with Western capitalist states, but a temporary decline in GDP was registered, followed by a sharp rise in inflation and levels of crime. These effects were exacerbated by the republic's departure from the rouble zone in May 1993 and adoption of its own currency, the som. In 1992, Kyrgystan joined the UN.

Akayev faced opposition from conservative communists and nationalists, who dominated the 350-member legislature, which had been elected during the Soviet era. However, Akayev won public backing in referenda in 1994 for his presidency and for the replacement of the Uluk Kenesh with a smaller, elected bicameral body. In 1995, a new, pro-Akayev parliament was elected and Akayev was re-elected president, defeating two challengers. The president made his priorities land privatization, restoration of Russian as a national language alongside Kyrgyz (to stem the exodus of skilled Russians), the preservation of the CIS (which was of great economic value to Kyrgyzstan), and the prevention of the spread of Islamic fundamentalism from neighbouring Tajikistan. Kyrgyzstan also established close ties with neighbouring Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, with whom it had forged an economic, social, and military union in 1994. It also tried to develop close relations with Turkey, with whom it shares linguistic traditions.

A 1996 referendum increased the president's powers and agreement was reached with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to create a Central Asian single economic market. In 1997, President Akayev signed a decree allowing private ownership of land. In October 2000, despite the fact that Kyrgyzstan had a foreign debt of US$1.2 billion and unemployment was approaching 50%, Akayev was re-elected president, although independent monitors criticized the conduct of the election.

Summit meeting

In July 2000, the presidents of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, China, Russia, and Tajikistan met in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and pledged cooperation in fighting terrorism, religious extremism, and drug trafficking. In September 2000, however, Islamist rebels, allegedly funded by international terrorist organizations, and involved in drug trafficking, crossed into Kyrgyzstan from Afghanistan, via Tajikistan, with the objective of establishing an Islamic state in east Uzbekistan.

Resignation of Akayev

Opposition to Akayev began to mount from 2000. In April 2001, nine opposition parties, including the Agrarno-Trudovnaya Partiya Kyrgyzstana (ATPK; Agrarian Labour Party of Kyrgyzstan), the Socialisticheskaya Partiya Ata Meken (AM; Socialist Party Ata Meken), and the Partija Kommunistov Kyrgyzstana (PKK; Party of Communists of Kyrgyzstan) formed an alliance, the People's Patriotic Movement (PPM). The PPM was particularly critical of the government's persecution of the independent media. In April 2005, Akayev was forced to resign, due to widespread, but non-violent, popular protest (known as the ‘Tulip Revolution’) about the unfair running of the March 2005 parliamentary elections and concerns about growing levels of corruption in the government. Akayev fled to Moscow. Kurmanbek Bakiev, a former prime minister, 2000–02, whom parliament had already appointed as acting president and prime minister, won a landslide victory in the July 2005 presidential elections and appointed Felix Kulov as his prime minister.

Kyrgyzstan (redirected from Kirghistan)